


Sunshine Child

by dear_apollo



Category: Gintama
Genre: Bisexual Gintoki, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Found Family, GINTOKI APPRECIATION, Gintoki-Centric, M/M, i just love gintama so much, not beta read we die like gintoki's wallet, why are the joui 4 so horny in this im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_apollo/pseuds/dear_apollo
Summary: Sakamoto thrusts a crucifix in Gintoki’s vague direction, which he irately bats away. “I’m not the antichristorthe devil, you dumb pimple!”Or alternatively gods walk among us, and Gintoki bleeds sunsets and silver.
Relationships: Kagura & Sakata Gintoki & Shimura Shinpachi, Katsura Kotarou/Sakamoto Tatsuma/Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke, Katsura Kotarou/Sakata Gintoki, Sakamoto Tatsuma/Sakata Gintoki, Sakata Gintoki & Yoshida Shouyou, Sakata Gintoki/Everyone, Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke
Comments: 34
Kudos: 250





	Sunshine Child

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: SORRY FOR TYPOS 🙏  
> Edit: thanks for actual angel pearthery for pointing out some of those typos!!!

It begins in a shrine, an ancient expensive relic dedicated to an older era.

It begins with a mother and a father, who gave up their shared flesh and antiquated blood to religion.

It begins with Gintoki, who was to be sacrificed to some unknown god before he was even born.

* * *

He is four, and he’s hiding from the priests and the shrine maidens. At this age he is still a tiny child, with wild silver hair and eyes the colour of old blood.

He is supposed to be learning history today, but he hates knowing and being taught the lives of dead people. To show his displeasure, the child did a full body flop on the floor earlier this morning, adamant to skip the lesson, but the priestesses just gasped in outrage and pinched him.

He fled once their backs were turned.

“Little God, where are you?” one of the shrine maidens, a slender girl named Haru, voices out. The boy, who is squirreled up in a tree, huffs in anger. He hates being called Little God, but what else were they supposed to call him? He was never given a name, since sacrificial babies weren’t supposed to have _one_ , weren’t even allowed to call their blood and their bodies their own.

But more than that, the boy feels insulted. He’s a big boy now! He can read lots of texts without pictures, and can outrun the head priest. He’s even able to hold in his tears when Big Sister Natsume starts telling ghost stories!

A pale hand grasps his ankle, and priestess Haru gives a triumphant “Ha!” and shouts for the others. “You really had us worried there, Little God,” she gently scolds him, ruffling his silver perm in quiet affection.

Still caught up in the shock of being so forcefully discovered, the boy can only blink once, twice, before he bursts into tears.

Haru just gives a weary sigh in response.

* * *

Two years pass, and he is now Six Years Old.

He is proficient with his numbers, and can now write in a legible penmanship. He insists he’s no longer scared of ghosts, but after the occasional storytelling with Big Sister Natsume, who always cackles about boogeymen hiding in the dark, the silver-haired child just huddles in his futon and quietly weeps into his pillow.

Oh, and he’s still being taught history, but he skips the lessons less now. Haru has taken over teaching the subject, and she tries to make it interesting. She downplays the deaths of foreign monarchs and wars in various battlefields, out of quiet respect for the sacrificial baby – for the child who is going to die soon, in honour of some god he doesn’t care for.

Because he is now Six Years Old, and that means that the he is now nearer death than before. He has already begun his lessons on traditional dances, and his first performance will also be his last. 

Sometimes, when he is alone, he gives in to his built-up resentment of his parents. They gave him away while he was just a small clump of cells in his mother’s womb, neither being able to consent nor disagree with their decision, and now he doesn’t even own his body and his blood and the life in his veins. He doesn’t know much about them, and he doesn’t particularly care to know more.

What little knowledge he possesses about his parents came in snippets told by the priests and priestesses. He knows that: his parents do not share his unusual colouring, that his mother has beautiful fingers and that he got his nose from his father. He knows that they were kind people, but not enough to not give away their first born to religion.

The young child spots Haru in the distance, and he runs in her direction. She looks at him in surprise, before her face morphs into a small smile.

“Oh, Little God,” she murmurs into the silver of his hair, and he merely tightens his arms around her.

He has all the people he needs in the shrine. He has lots of big brothers and sisters here. It is not much, but it is enough.

* * *

A few months later, the shrine burns down, and he knows his life will never be the same again.

He is running around, yelling. He doesn’t know what or for whom his screams were for, but it is the only thing he can do right now. There are men wearing big straw hats scattered around the compound, with crow masks tightly glued on their faces. They kill everyone – the priests and priestesses and family – that they see, their once white yukatas dyed now a deep, almost black red.

It is so hard to believe that just few minutes ago, the head priest was teaching him numbers and rhetoric. The child was in the middle of solving the complex problems when an unknown person snuck up and gutted the head priest. The staff quickly pierced through his stomach, and the man came crashing on the wooden floor.

“Run away, Little God!” The head priest gurgled, blood spurting from his mouth. The boy hesitated, but then the man gave a blood-curling _**“GO!”**_ before he took off and sprinted. His sandals weren’t useful for running, but he had to make do. Behind him the stranger – _murderer_ , his mind whispered in barely restrained anger – with the crow mask gave chase, and the tiny sacrificial child almost gave in.

But then he remembers the guts that spilled from the head priest’s stomach, and the sudden rush of resentment fuels him to sprint faster.

But it is futile, because his feet were used to playful running and soft dances, and within moments the killer is on him.

He closes his eyes in defiance, because he does not want the last thing he sees to be this cruel, savage murderer. He has already made peace with his death – he just didn’t expect it to end like this.

He is not sure if there truly is a god, or if religion was supposed to be this cruel, but regardless he whispers a prayer for everyone. _Natsume Takumi Akira Haru Asahi Yusuke Sakura Ryota_. He chants them under his breath, a final goodbye to his found family.

He is still Six Years Old, nameless and just as powerless. This is where he dies, he thinks, in a bloodied and desecrated shrine.

The murderer adjusts his grip on the staff before he swings it down, and he is preparing for the worst until he realises there’s no pain

and

he

can

suddenly

_breathe_.

He opens his eyes, shocked, just in time to see Haru get stabbed in the chest. She intercepts the murder, and the silk kimono a rich man from the city gifted for her is now blooming a very deep red. The masked man attempts to pull out the staff, but she holds on tight and doesn’t let go.

“Haru,” he trembles, the name gasping out of his mouth without permission. His once silver perm is now a pinkish colour, a combination of Haru’s blood and his sweat matting the normally wild hair against his forehead.

“Little God,” she says in reply, still not letting go. “If you cannot go to him, then he will – a real god will come and meet you. I’m not sure when, or where, but you won’t stay alone forever.”

The man with the straw hat and the crow mask sneers at her in disgust, before twisting the embedded staff. Haru grunts, and more red joins the silk of her outfit. The sound prompts him to grab an abandoned ceremonial knife not too far from him, and it is with this weapon that he makes his first kill.

He hits the masked man in the throat, and this vile sinner falls to the ground, dead. He hits the floor with a sick thud, but the child does not hear it.

Instead he is frantic next to Haru, kneeling, trying to hear the _thump thump thump_ of her chest. Anxiety is beginning to worm its way into his chest, but he tries to stay steadfast and strong.

He carefully circles her wrist, tries to feel for a pulse – but there is only silence. Her uncaring body scares him deeply, so the boy makes a grab for her sleeve, desperate. He is shaking her now, screaming _HARU_ over and over again, but it only causes the staff to jingle, and Haru does not wake.

He is six years old, but in smaller letters now, with pink-tinted silver hair and a bloody knife. And for the second time in his life he is abandoned again.

He leaves the shrine with bony knees and dead fish eyes.

* * *

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, doesn’t know if he is seven or eight now. He is still nameless, still permy-haired, but he is not as powerless as before.

(His tiny feet ache the farther he walks away from the shrine.)

There is a war, and his countrymen clash their swords against strange objects used by even stranger creatures – a group apparently called _Amanto_ , which he finds out by listening to whispers and gossip conducted by women too young to sport wrinkles on their foreheads. Somehow in this changed environment the child manages to stay alive, triumphant in the aftermaths of a battlefield.

He lives off of the leftovers, a scavenger wrapped in silver, and he is seen enough times that stories about him spread throughout the country. They call him the Corpse Eating Demon, and the first time he hears this he laughs because he is no longer a god, and what would the priests and priestess say about it in the afterlife?

He gives a little wave at the sky, just in case Haru and the others were watching over him in heaven. Then he grabs the rusty katana he scavenged from a general’s decaying corpse, and resumes his journey. 

He keeps a look out for crows ( _and fuck crows_ , he shrieks in his head gleefully), because death always accompanies them and he is anticipating his next loot. He remembers finding a half-melted chocolate bar from his last battlefield, remembers tasting sugar for the first time.

He wonders if he can find more chocolate on the next corpse he sees.

Instead what he gets is a somewhat stale rice ball, which he savours on top of a random dead body. He is almost finished with his meal when he hears footsteps approach him. He roughly unsheathes his katana, the blade making a discrete dull thud, and comes face to face with _a god_.

This long-haired man with graceful limbs christens him as Sakata Gintoki, and he doesn’t really know if he is seven or eight years old yet, but the important thing is that he is not alone again.

Gintoki of the silver hair with a silver soul grips this stranger’s hand tightly, like a promise, and Yoshida Shouyo smiles for real this time. 

They are not yet family, but they can be.

* * *

They spend their days traveling. Gintoki is already good with his mathematics, so Shouyo resumes teaching him about history instead. Gin almost feels guilty for enjoying the lessons, out of some bizarre form of respect for his dead priestess friend. No matter how many times she had tried cajoling him, he just couldn’t bring himself to like the subject. But here he is now, a student again, actively participating in history lessons with his new sensei.

(In retrospect, maybe Haru just kind of sucked at teaching. Gin makes a mental note to pray an apology later, in case her ghost heard him and haunts him to submission.)

“Wow,” Gintoki says, in quiet wonder, while the two are deep in discussion about the beheading of monarchs. “You’re really good at teaching, sensei!”

Shouyo laughs, flattered.

In an awed voice, Gintoki continues. “You know sensei, it’s really amazing how you sound like you’ve experienced the things that we talk about in our lessons. Like with the beheading, I was _this close_ to believing that it happened to you some time ago, just by the way you talk! But that’s impossible – because then you’d be dead, _which you’re clearly not!_ ”

Gintoki chuckles, finding the idea absurd. He turns shining eyes to his sensei, and Shouyo gives him a strained smile.

“Haha ha,” he says in reply, his laugh now nervous, and promptly changes the subject.

“Do you want me to teach you how to properly hold a sword instead, Gintoki?” Shouyo says, desperate, his hands sweating.

Gintoki – a dumb child – beams his reply, and starts to look for his katana.

Still quite unbelieving that it worked, Shouyo unsheathes his own sword and begins teaching earnestly.

He ends their impromptu lesson with Gin on the forest floor, bruised and happy. He sits near Shouyo, his rust-coloured eyes reflecting the fire from their campsite, and falls asleep in his teacher’s warmth.

* * *

They spend the majority of their travels like this: in the morning, Shouyo hunts for meat and fish, which Gintoki prepares as breakfast and lunch (after sensei’s third burnt meal, they both decided to let Gin handle the cooking from now on). After washing themselves in a nearby river, Gin begins practicing his handwriting on a piece of paper, the texture rough on his sensitive skin.

He learns complex math during Monday to Wednesday. On Thursdays and Fridays Shouyo teaches him about history again, followed by language and other subjects.

They pick up their swords and practice every day, after every lesson.

On Saturdays and Sundays Shouyo wraps a pretty kerchief to hide his unusual silver hair before they journey to any nearby village. They often spend the night inside an inn, indulging in snacks and strawberry milk (Gintoki stills recalls his first sip with quiet fondness – it is a memory he treasures deeply) until it’s time to go to bed, where they huddle close together.

Some time in their travels, the two of them eventually reach an abandoned temple, so like Gintoki’s first one except this was kind of run down, with overgrown vines giving the building a somewhat haunted look.

“Oh gosh,” the child whimpers at the sight, and holds Shouyo’s hand tighter. His teacher grips back, surveying the area with an interested, if somewhat critical eye.

“Okay,” he decides after a while, nodding his sand-coloured head in approval. “This is our home now.”

And just like that, Gintoki quickly lets go. He flops on the ground, mindful of potential grass stains, and makes a dying whale noise.

“Are you sure sensei?!!” He says, frantic. “What if there are monsters there??!”

Shouyo looks at him, amused. “Why, are you scared, Gintoki?”

The child trembles, before shaking his head in denial. “N-no, I’m a b-big boy now and I’m not scared of anything,” he insists, before throwing a fearful look at the building.

The long-haired man just ruffles his hair, which was as wild and silver as ever, before crouching down at his eye level. “Don’t worry, Gintoki,” he coos in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. “No monster would dare harm you.”

The child peers at him with wide distrustful eyes, unsure if he should believe his sensei.

Yoshida Shouyo feels a sudden wild affection bloom underneath his ribcage. It travels skin-deep, and resonates from his scalp right down to his veins.

The man picks up a somewhat large rock, its surface rough and grainy against his palm. He shows it to Gintoki, asks “How can monsters hurt you when there’s a bigger predator here?” and grounds the stone to dust.

Gin blinks from his place on the ground, his fear forgotten, before scrambling upwards to stare at his sensei properly. “You’re so cool,” the child informs him solemnly.

His sensei picks him up then, and gives Gintoki a gentle kiss on the cheek. “You’re cooler,” Shouyo says, just as sincere.

* * *

Their found family of two grows bigger by three, five, thirteen. The most special additions to their tight-knit group went by the names of Takasugi Shinsuke and Katsura Kotarou, and they were the most reckless and dumbest people Gintoki had the (dis)pleasure of meeting, to which Shouyo beamed back that _great, then they’re just like you!_

(Shouyo-sensei didn’t get cake that night, no matter how much the adult pleaded and begged for it otherwise. Yes, Gintoki was a superb baker too, _so shut up Bakasugi, Gin-chan is totally perfect husband material!_ )

The three of them – Gintoki and Takasugi and Katsura – spend their days practicing their swords and learning new things. They fight and play together, a package deal that came in the form of three children with soft cheeks and calloused palms. Other kids occasionally join them, but at the end of the day it’s just them.

_GinTakasugiZura_.

Once night falls, the children drag their futons together, and they huddle underneath their respective blankets to chase away the evening chill.

“Hey Zura,” Gin whispers, his voice soothing in the dark. A customary grumble of _Zura janai Katsura da!_ is heard, which both Gintoki and Takasugi graciously ignore.

“What was your life like, before all of this?”

Katsura is silent for a moment, thinking of the best way to reply, before shrugging and deciding to just tell them his whole backstory. After 30 minutes of non-stop monologue, Gin hastily interrupts with an “Uh, okay, cool beans” before redirecting his question to Takasugi.

The emerald-eyed child gives a quiet huff, glad to have the room reverted back to a Zura-voice-free zone. He faces the two of them, happy to see them facing back, and says, “Boring. My life before you – before all of you – was boring. My father would beat me whenever I came home with low marks. The mansion was big, and it was cold and impersonal. I had no real friends, just acquaintances, and that family never really felt like family. It’s just that, no one was ever really happy there.”

Takasugi smiles against his pillow, a faint beautiful thing, and murmurs, “But here – I’m happy here,” before falling silent.

He is not sure why, but Gintoki suddenly finds himself blindly searching for Katsura’s hand, and holds it tight. The long-haired boy then takes it as his cue to clasp Takasugi’s other hand in response. Like this, the three are connected.

They are invincible.

Gintoki prays to gods (both local and foreign) for courage, with hope a tender flame in his heart, and starts telling his own story. He keeps it short, brief, and Katsura and Takasugi stay silent until he’s done.

Once he finishes, it feels like a huge burden has been lifted from his tiny, bird-like chest. In the dark, Gintoki is free.

He is almost asleep when Katsura gently tugs his hand closer to him. Gin gives a sleepy _hmm_ and waits.

Almost a full minute passes before Katsura says, “Hey Gintoki.”

He murmurs back a soft “Yeah?”

Another long silence, and then he whispers, “For what it's worth, I’m glad you’re here now.”

Takasugi grunts an agreement, still rough around the edges, and Gintoki smiles, the love he feels for them almost bursting out of his paper-thin skin.

The three of them fall asleep while holding hands.

* * *

Gintoki has grown used to their routine, so much so that he has let his guard down. This is how the rotten Bakufu finds them, with him vulnerable and full of violent rage. The night ends with them capturing Yoshida Shouyo, and for a third time, Gintoki loses his family.

“Gintoki, Zura,” Takasugi says, his voice a deep rumble that fills the morning air. “Let’s get sensei back.”

Katsura fingers the hilt of his sword, his noble disposition and determined face a stark contrast to Takasugi’s angry, almost beast-like form.

Gintoki looks at them, at the remnants of his found family. The sight of these war gods gives him strength, and together the three of them join the war. They quickly rise up the ranks of the Joui faction, and soon they are rewriting history.

Gintoki temporarily abandons his humanity in the battlefield, and becomes a demon once more. The soldiers constantly whisper his moniker, a man named the _Shiroyasha_ ¸ and before he knew it he has become the face of the resistance. He doesn’t like it, because he has become widespread enough that other people think he’s a fake, a legend, some make believe myth to give other people hope.

(He wants to be given the respect he deserves for destroying the _Enmi_ , dammit, and he’s not about to get dismissed as a silly story for that!) 

Meanwhile Takasugi spends his days hacking at Amanto and Bakufu soldiers alike with a gleeful sneer, leading a highly efficient and violence-prone army – the _Kihetai_ , he insists on calling them. Sometimes, when the Joui soldiers are at a disadvantage, Takasugi smears blood on his cheeks and does a rapid dismember-dancing-spree, an oddly attractive sight that kind of scares the enemies and Gintoki.

_It boosts the soldiers’ morale_ , the emerald-eyed man said once, feeling defensive. _Also, I just want to kill a few people and destroy them._

(Gin believes that Takasugi has a few screws loose, and maybe needs professional help. Privately, Katsura agrees.)

On another hand, Zura stays Zura, regardless of what people say. He becomes Runaway Koutaro on bad days, when their side is particularly close to annihilation. And when he is angered enough, the smart man transforms into an almost different person entirely, someone they call the Rampaging Noble.

Zura is one of the most important people in the army, and his two best friends never fail to remind people that.

Almost a year later, a new idiot joins them. He has a perm (which Gintoki looks at in wonder, unable to believe that someone was unlucky enough to be cursed with thick wild hair just like him), and his _Ahahahahahaha_ can be kind of annoying, but he’s a financial genius and when the Joui comes back on the battlefield, they are twice as strong as before.

He is Sakamoto Tatsuma, and Gintoki and Takasugi’s first impressions of him smell a lot like puke.

Gin meets the man a second time, while he is in a nearby river, wearing a very thin and see-through yukata. He is in the middle of a bath, with soap suds coating his limbs, when he sees Sakamoto peer at him shyly from a corner.

“Hullo,” the tall man with the wild hair says, looking at him in what appears to be fascination.

Gintoki feels a spontaneous burst of _something_ and invites him over.

They bond over their perms, which they agree is a curse, and Gin almost dies because he stumbled on a big stone and _AH FUCK HE CAN’T SWIM_ so Sakamoto had to fish him out, a small smile on his face, and when they leave the clearing they are now _Tatsuma_ and _Kintoki_.

After that, Sakamoto Tatsuma quickly befriends the whole army, his stupid dumb face endearing himself to the rest of the Joui faction.

When the war ends, he has become the Dragon of Katsurahama.

* * *

“Wait, what,” Sakamoto says, blinking at Gintoki inside their tent with disbelieving eyes. “So you’re telling me that you, _the Shiroyasha_ , grew up as a _sacrificial baby_?”

The silver-haired teenager nods, before taking a huge sip from their shared bottle of alcohol. He licks his lips, his cheeks flushed pink, and Sakamoto’s eyes darken at the sight.

From the back, Takasugi and Katsura are playing UNO, and Zura is winning. The man across him sniffs in disdain, his emerald eyes narrowed with concentration, and tells Sakamoto, “Yeah, Gintoki’s parents probably gave him up because he’s cursed or something.”

“Motherfucker,” Gintoki hisses in outrage, before proceeding to tell Katsura that Takasugi had three blue cards, and two yellow ones in his deck.

Takasugi bares his teeth and snarls back, an emo ball of rage, and Gintoki has enough self-preservation instincts to uneasily face the other direction, away from his friend’s venomous glare. If he can’t see Takasugi, then he won’t be able to see him back, right?

Out of sight, out of mind.

(Gintoki discreetly checks his pockets for a note that said _TAKASUGI DID IT_ , just in case he got murdered. He has a feeling that it’s going to be tonight, depending on the outcome of their UNO game.)

Still nervous, the teenager turns back to Sakamoto, who is pale and busy digging inside his bag for something.

Giving a triumphant shriek, Sakamoto thrusts a crucifix in Gintoki’s vague direction, which he irately bats away. “I’m not the antichrist _or_ the devil, you dumb pimple!”

Sakamoto squints his eyes suspiciously, honestly not convinced, and Gintoki sighs before dragging the tall lumbering man outside.

In the moonlight his hair glows, wild and quicksilver, and just as Katsura wails his defeat, Takasugi somehow winning (Zura had _three_ plus four cards, how did he not win), Gintoki drags down Sakamoto and traps him in a kiss.

It is tender, soft in a way that feels like home.

“Tatsuma,” he reverently murmurs against his skin.

Sakamoto smiles, whispers _Gintoki_ back at him. His eyes are wide, as if he’s rediscovering religion for the first time, and when he speaks, it is gentle and full of trust.

“You’re no demon,” Sakamoto says. “You’re Gintoki. And you are enough.”

* * *

Soon, they are on the move again.

They receive news about Amanto soldiers camped near the outskirts of some city, and the plan was to ambush them, maybe send a hate mail or two.

(He doesn’t really know the details, but Gin has complete faith in Zura. They all do.)

Gintoki is busy arguing with two soldiers about an issue of Shounen Jump they got from the previous town that they stayed in when he catches sight of Katsura, and stills.

He breaks away from the conversation and instead speed walks next to his friend, his silver perm a stark contrast to the other’s beautiful dark hair. Zura looks sombre, his eyes tight and fists clenched in worry.

“Zura,” says Gintoki, carefully. “Are you alright?”

Katsura startles at his voice. “Oh, hi there,” he says in reply. “And it’s not Zura, it’s Katsura!”

The Shiroyasha idly picks at his white coat, silent, and patiently waits for a reply. After a long while, Katsura finally answers, his voice faint with disquiet. “It’s just that,” he mumbles, hesitant, “what if we don’t win? What if we fail because of me?”

Gin frowns at that. “Zura, we’re not going to fail. You spent two whole weeks planning the attack.”

The long-haired teenager shakes his head, still not convinced. “But what if it’s not enough?!” he demands, a sudden burst of anger making him shout.

A couple of heads turn, but Gintoki dismisses them easily enough. Then he looks back to Katsura, the silver of his hair catching fire, and steadfastly declares, “If it’s not enough, then you have us, Zura. We’ll follow you whenever, wherever.”

He gestures to the men behind him, to the combatants and medics, to Takasugi and Sakamoto still knee-deep in conversation about money. “Everyone here,” Gin says with unrelenting conviction, like a promise, “even if it leads us to hell.”

Katsura still worries, however, but Gintoki easily forgives him because Zura has always been dumb and stupid like that. This is why he shares the title of General with the rest of their Joui quartet, so that he could take it easy next time.

Zura can relax and not be the Smart Person for a while – because Gintoki is there, and he can carry enough functioning brain cells for the two of them.

And if he gets tired then there is always Takasugi, and if they’re desperate enough, Sakamoto. The point is, everything is going to be okay, so Zura should really stop worrying because it’s not good for his hair.

Later, after they win the battle with minimal casualties, Katsura and Gintoki stay back at their campsite while the rest of the men celebrate, either with alcohol or brothel-hunting.

Zura grasps his hand and with bright eyes, he says, “Thank you.”

Gintoki rolls his eyes because _duh_ , and gives him a celebratory kiss.

* * *

The thing is, the battlefield is where Takasugi and Gin shine best. They are not like Sakamoto and Zura, whose tiny mortal bodies are crammed to the brim with righteous fury.

In fact, they are closer to two-bit criminals, to street thugs and gang leaders and yakuza whose only saving grace are their charisma.

There is war and barely-restrained violence in their veins, and when they are sent out to fight the Amanto, they come back with smiles bloodied and red.

The Shiroyasha prefers to go solo, while the Kihetai wage war as a unit of organised chaos – regardless of how much their methods differ, the outcome is the same.

(They leave behind a trail of corpses, and their legend spreads from Kyoto to the rest of Japan and eventually, the universe.)

The surprise attack laid by the Joui today proves to be one of their most victorious yet. Only Takasugi and Gintoki are left on the battlefield, what with their soldiers having already left a few hours ago, carrying both wounded and dead in pristine white stretchers (which was a gift given to Katsura from a widow in a neighbouring village).

Takasugi takes the time to survey the carcass-strewn field. He crouches next to a nearby Amanto, its body crusty with dried blood, with limbs bent and twisted to create a macabre sort of art.

The emerald-eyed teen pokes it and smiles when the Amanto stays dead.

He spies Gintoki a few feet away, rummaging the pockets of some random nameless corpse. A few minutes later, the silver-haired general gives a triumphant _Aha!_ before he slumps on the ground, making himself comfortable next to a detached torso.

(The Corpse Eating Demon, Takasugi remembers from a distant conversation with a half-drunk Gintoki, never truly got over his scavenging ways.)

“We truly are fucked up,” says the Kihetai leader in the silence. Gin merely shrugs his reply, and says, “Totally.”

Once Gin has licked all the sugar from his fingers, Takasugi pins him down with a searing, bruising kiss. The green-eyed monster swallows all of Gintoki whole – this graceful silver-haired lover, with eyes the colour of a sunset just seconds before night falls.

There the two demons lie, in a graveyard of their own making, and Gin knows that this is a memory he will keep close to his heart.

“Sugi,” the teenager cries against the broad chest, desperate, “please.”

At that, Takasugi presses one, two, a thousand kisses against his brows, the corner of his lips and the curve of his mouth. Takasugi – _friend rival lover follower devotee_ – is whispering prayers against his skin, and here, in the corpse-scented battlefield, Gintoki is once again reborn a god.

(Later that night, Gintoki looks down mournfully at his pillow.

“You just took my virginity,” he says sadly, and sniffles. “Now you have to marry me, so that you could protect my good name.”

Beside him, Takasugi snorts.) 

* * *

Shouyo is no god, Gintoki realises too late as he watches his sensei’s head tumble to the ground, his sword permanently red and ruined forever. It doesn’t take long before their little group disbands (Takasugi no longer stares at him with affection in his eyes, but he is somehow less bad compared to _Katsura_ , who just leaves the Shiroyasha in silence, and doesn’t look back), and the fourth time Gintoki loses his family, it is entirely because of him.

He hides from the world for ten years, holed up in a shabby building in an even shabbier neighbourhood – _this place is called Kabukicho_ , says his new landlady Otose from her spot behind the bar counter, _the district that never sleeps._

Here, Gintoki is neither demon nor god. He is empty, a muffled version of himself ( _Utsuro_ , his mind unexpectedly whispers, and Gin is not sure why he feels an intense discomfort at the thought), and the young adult takes up new hobbies to distract himself from the post-war monotony.

He tries to retrace his steps, and goes bar-hopping.

Prostitutes frolic around him, attracted to his pretty looks and the way he carries himself – but fucking does nothing for him, so Gintoki returns to his new home with his chest hollowed out a little bit more.

He does not return empty-handed, though – regardless of how much he doesn’t want it, Gin ends up with alcohol and gambling addictions. The chemicals and the adrenaline help him get through some of his worst days.

(Years later, after they reconcile, Katsura accidentally stumbles upon Gintoki asleep on the floor, cradling an empty beer bottle to his chest. The man’s snores are loud, as if to compensate for the silence, but there is no denying the furrow between his brows – no denying the unmistakeable wetness on his cheeks.

Zura takes one careful look at the scene and cries. He cries for his friends, for his sensei, for Gintoki who has never truly escaped the war.

Once he’s done, Katsura gently pries the bottle and holds his friend tight, attempts to gather the bits and pieces Gintoki has left behind, and whispers, “What have we done?”

No one answers.)

Soon, after countless hobbies that didn’t really stick, Gintoki finds himself doing the jobs nobody else wants to do. It starts with an old man needing some help in manual labour – the silver-haired teen bickers and bitches as he works, but he does a good enough job. Word spreads, and a couple of months later, _Yorozuya Gin-chan_ opens above Otose’s bar.

The sign looks worn and dirty, with a couple of smudges here and there, but it shines bright for the residents of Kabukicho.

In the district that never sleeps, Sakata Gintoki relearns how to be human.

“Oy, perm head!” Otose shouts from the doorway, her greying head barely visible. “You have a customer!”

Gin adjusts the new yukata he bought, which had cute swirls (swirls! Like waves! From the ocean!) on the sleeves, and yells back, “Take them to the living room! I’ll be right there!”

He checks his appearance again for the last time, and feels satisfied.

Sakata Gintoki of Yorozuya indeed.

* * *

He is not sure how, but people eventually worm and squirrel their way into his office, past his defenses, and for the fifth time in his life ( _Let them stay_ , he begs), Gintoki meets his new found family.

He bumps into Shinpachi first. 16 years old. Virgin. After saving his sister, the kid has taken to following the other around, like a rather plain-looking puppy. Gin attempts to shake him loose, but the glasses-wearing-human is stubborn, and soon the literal Shiroyasha resigns his inexperienced self to babysitting.

Just as the two of them settle into a new routine, Gintoki finds himself gaining a new stray literally days after the incident, a feral money-sucking Yato (holy shit! Baby Amanto!) by the name of Kagura.

He looks at the two of them, sees the exhaustion and hunger and excitement to learn new things with the silver-haired man, before he rolls his eyes and says, “Fiiiiine.”

_Yorozuya Gin-chan_ gains two new members that night. Gintoki watches them out of the corner of his eyes, already endeared, as Shinpachi and Kagura fight over dinner.

“Wow, Gin-chan!” the redheaded Yato shouts after her third helping, impressed, “I didn’t know you were such a good cook!”

Shinpachi nods his head in agreement, and cries. “I want to stay here for every meal,” the bespectacled teenager weeps. “No longer will I have to subject myself to _Aneue’_ s cooking.”

Gintoki preens a little _because fuck you Takasugi, I told you I’ll be good at parenting!_ before explaining to the two of them what it really means to do odd jobs smack-dab in the filthy district of Kabukicho. (“Look, I know I said that we do any job so long as we get paid, but we do not,” Gin impresses upon his two chipmunk children, serious, “ _whore ourselves out!_ There must be a limit to desperation.”)

Shinpachi and Kagura listen, eyes wide and attentive.

Halfway through the explanations, Gintoki looks at them and pauses, helpless against the sudden wave of fondness he feels lurking underneath his ribs _. I can move mountains for the two of you,_ he thinks to himself, awed, _be anything for you._

His new wards smile back, as if aware.

_We are only invincible with you._

* * *

Gintoki has no idea how old he is, but he is young at heart and his balls are still working, so he doesn’t worry too much about it.

He is at the cemetery with Katsura, who was invited by a blonde widow (jesus fuck Zura, _not again_ ) to pay their respects to her dead husband. The two long-haired friends chatter for a while, and soon Gintoki finds himself bored enough to wander around the burial grounds.

He knows the area pretty well, and soon the silver-haired man ends up in front of a familiar-looking grave. He crouches right in front it, and smiles.

“Hullo,” Gintoki greets Otose’s husband warmly. “If you wanna ask how that old hag of yours is doing, then don’t worry because she’s doing just fine. I don’t think she’s gonna be joining you any time soon.”

The trees rustle in the accompanying silence, and Gin feels his smile widen. He stays there, enjoying the peace and quiet with a literal tombstone, before Katsura finds him and drags him home.

(“I looked everywhere for you,” the terrorist lectures him, his face disapproving. “Why did you leave me there?”

Gintoki rolls his eyes and says, “I was leaving you to your kink, Zura.”

A gasp, then – “ _Zura janai, Katsura da!_ ”)

On the way there, the two best friends discuss the latest prank that they’re doing the next time they see Takasugi. They agree to include Sakamoto in their plan as well, because _lol can you imagine how much Chibisugi will flip his shit once he realises that he’s the only one excluded, Zura?_

“Oh, Gintoki,” Katsura interrupts, a small smile on his face, “we’re here!”

Sure enough, the _Yorozuya Gin-chan_ sign is visible from their spot near a random convenience store. Zura says his goodbyes once they reach the building, and the silver-haired man heads straight to his bedroom, where he immediately prepares a futon for sleeping.

Before he tucks himself underneath the covers, Gintoki carves his friends’ names right next to his heartbeat, a litany of prayers of _Kagura Shinpachi Tsukki Sho-chan Sougo Zenzo Sacchan._

(The thing is, he has developed a rather weird friendship with Sarutobi Ayame.

He raps bony knuckles against the ceiling on days when he feels gentle, and Sacchan joins him in the living room, drinking his hidden stash of alcohol.

They sit there, enjoying the quiet, and Gin thinks that he loves her best like this.)

In the morning, Gin sees a fully-made breakfast placed carefully near his head. At the bottom of the tray is a note that says _Good morning Gin-san <333_ in beautiful, looping cursive.

It smells faintly of nato, and Gintoki smiles, blessed.

* * *

“Fuck,” says Gin, with extreme emotion.

His scooter just broke down, which sucks, because in thirty minutes Kagura’s older brother will arrive at the Terminal, and Gintoki’s only means to get there is now gone.

(That sukonbu-sucking brat wrestled him into submission, and now he has no choice but to comply and pick up the craziest Yato he knows.)

The silver-haired man stares morosely at his piece-of-shit scooter, sulking, before a honk and a loud _Oy, Yorozuya!_ alerts him to the presence of the infamous Shinsengumi officer, Hijikata Toshirou.

The law enforcer stops the car right next to Gin.

“Wanna go for a ride?” he offers.

Gintoki grins back at him, ecstatic. “Um, fuck yeah.”

After informing Hijikata about his predicament, the black-haired man begins driving towards the Terminal. On his seat by the window, Gin sees this new Edo and thinks about the Joui, thinks about his best friends _SakamotoZuraTakasugi_ , thinks about how he has enough love for the people and not for the country that inspired him to be a figure of legend – from god to demon and back again.

Gintoki turns around, about to ask Hijikata a question, when he suddenly meets his eyes and is violently brought back to human. His chest flutters at the sight of him, and the Shinsengumi Vice Chief smiles back, just as smitten.

There is an easy and quiet affection there, and Gintoki wonders, a beautiful spontaneous thought, who the real god here is.

* * *

Kamui has always been violent, was probably born kicking and screaming into this world. He thinks that he is doomed to be like this forever, an actual redheaded monster, when he suddenly sees Kagura’s _earth brother father mother_ , and the fight leaves him, makes him vulnerable.

A corner of Gintoki’s lips quirk in a shy smile, his arm raised in a half wave, and Kamui is doomed.

**Author's Note:**

> i should be studying for my college entrance exams but nooooo
> 
> anyways gintama ruined me and i just had to cram this stupid fucking fic or else ill never be able to focus on anything else
> 
> me, to gintoki: how dare u sneak up on me and give me ideas
> 
> (if u wanna talk to me u can find me on tumblr as poopycrumbs)


End file.
